Despite rising labor costs, economic inflation, and companies making an effort to cut back, the salary outlook for IT professionals is positive, according to InformationWeek.
Work-life balance and base pay top the list as what matters most to IT professionals regarding their jobs.
Base salary increase
77% of IT professionals reported an increase in base salary in 2022. The median salary increased from $125,000 in 2021 to $140,000, a jump of 12%.
61% of IT pros are satisfied with their total compensation, and 62% report they are satisfied with their overall job.
The gender pay gap still exists, but both men and women saw an increase in pay. Women’s annual salaries increased 28% from a median of $105,000 to $135,000 in 2022 and men’s pay increased 9% from $128,000 in 2021 to $140,000 in 2022.
57% of IT pros believe there is salary pay parity in terms of race or ethnicity, and 44% say their companies are trying to better support employees of color.
Aligning business and technology goals
58% of IT pros say they are unlikely to seek employment at another organization in the next year. For those who might look for a new job in 2023, the driving force behind their search would be higher pay (70%).
More than four in ten (42%) rate their present job security as “very secure,” and an additional 47% say they feel “somewhat secure.” Additionally, 45% say a career path in IT is more secure than other careers.
Collaborating with internal stakeholders, managing vendors, and aligning business and technology goals are the top skills IT pros need to do their job.
As IT departments look to automate processes in an effort to save money, it is unknown if AI and other new technologies will result in a loss of IT jobs. 58% say that training on innovative technologies is valuable to them in developing their careers, followed by training on risk and cybersecurity.
Generative AI and other new automation technologies
Efforts to further automate IT to save costs continue. However, it’s debatable how many efficiency gains remain to be harvested given mass digitalization and automation efforts from the pandemic forward. But then along came ChatGPT and the race to use large language AI models — mostly of the GPT-ilk — changed the efficiency game entirely.
While the ChatGPT phenomenon is still unfolding, some patterns are beginning to appear. In short, outputs from these AI models are untrustworthy and must be verified and validated by human workers.
“In spite of the unknowns in the market, the IT pay outlook is rosy for now. Companies are increasing pay as the cost of living increases, and they are committed to advances in pay parity and diversity hiring. Despite witnessing a string of layoffs at tech companies, the majority of IT professionals report positive overall job satisfaction and nearly nine out of ten feel confident with regard to their present job security,” said Sara Peters, Editor-in-Chief of InformationWeek.
“It’s difficult to predict what impact generative AI and other new automation technologies will have on IT salaries and hiring patterns. We’ll have to see what next year’s survey results tell us about that,” concluded Peters.